Los Angeles is burning, and the scope of the catastrophe is only now becoming evident. If you want to understand what is going on, check out Duane Patterson’s Hot Air essay. Duane, Hugh Hewitt’s radio producer, lives in Orange County. He traces the total government failure that has led to the present fiery crisis: the lack of water management, despite billions of dollars in appropriations; the incompetent woodland management, driven by environmentalists; recent cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget; fire hydrants that, for whatever reason, don’t produce any water; DEI in the fire department; and a homeless crisis that has contributed to one arson after another.
You should read the whole thing. Here are a couple of excerpts:
In 2014, Californians passed a bond measure to finally do something about capturing rain and snowpack run-off before it blends into the Pacific Ocean, becoming useless as both drinking water and fire defense. Proposition 1 passed overwhelmingly, and voters paid $7.5 billion dollars, at least theoretically, to make it happen. Gavin Newsom has been the governor of California for the past six of those 10 years. Would you like to take a stab at how many of these new reservoir or water capture systems have been completed? You’re absolutely right. Zero. Quadrillions of gallons of fresh water has been lost, or worse, intentionally pumped to the ocean.
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Insurance companies pulled out of the L.A. basin years ago because state regulators would not allow them to adjust their rates to cover the increased exposure risk that was growing along with all the undergrowth and brush in the hills that the state refused to cut back. Insurance companies knew trouble was coming. Everyone honestly knew this day would eventually come, but Gavin Newsom would love for you to believe it’s climate change’s fault and just one of those things that’s unavoidable.
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